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Access your files from Outside EPFL
Here you'll find instructions on how to get to your home directory, or use our computational resources in general from outside the EPFL network.
Most of the computers at EPFL are protected by a Firewall that should help keeping out malicious users and viruses (warms).
The firewall do not allow to connect directly to a protected intenral server or workstation. Nevertheless, authorized users can by-pass this limitation by estabilishing a VPN or ssh tunnel. Off-course, you still need to have an internet connection 
Access Servers for ssh connection
When your workstation is not within the EPFL network (either directly, or indirectly via some kind of tunnel), you can't connect directly to any internal server.
In order to reach a protected server, you must first connect to an Access Server and then, from this server, you can connect to the desired server or workstation.
Every lab has its own Access Server:
| LAB | Server |
|---|---|
| lthi | lth.epfl.ch |
| lthc | lth.epfl.ch |
| lcm | lth.epfl.ch |
| licos | licos.epfl.ch |
| algo | clusteralgo.epfl.ch |
| arni | clusteralgo.epfl.ch |
Ssh client
The ssh protocol can be used to connect to our Access Server, and from this connect to all others servers of our network. In order to access the network you have to use an ssh client and your login/password couple.
Linux and Os X come with a ssh client out of the box, for MS Windows you can download putty from this page.
The connection made by ssh protocol are encrypted, so nobody can sniff what you are doing. No clear connection (as telnet) to the servers are allowed from outside the LAN.
At this page you can find all the informations you need for connecting to the network and look at this page for a useful hint.
Copy files over the net
The use of ssh client permit only to work on the remote server, but if you need to copy some file from or to a remote server, you need to use others programs:
- rsync
- scp
No ftp servers are disponible on our network.
Dig a tunnel
Because of the firewalls the servers of EPFL network aren't directly accessible from Internet, but using the ssh protocol you can create one or more tunnel so you can connect directly from your local computer to all our server here in Lausanne. Just connect to the Access Server activating the tunnel option and you can login on the others servers of the network. look here for details.